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USA BLACK MUSLIMS (United States, 1961)

Eve Arnold was able to get permission from Malcolm X to follow him for two years with her camera. Malcolm X was the leader of the religious and political movement, the Nation of Islam, which advocates the supremacy of the black race. Arnold was invariably the only white face at Nation of Islam meetings. She was forced to wear special nonflammable clothing after cigarette butts were regularly stubbed out on her. At one of the rallies she was able to record the visit of George Lincoln Rockwell, the leader of the American Nazi Party. At the time she began her reportage, the Nation of Islam was still an unfamiliar organization in America. Life Magazine pulled the photographs at the last moment, because they would have appeared above an advertisement for chocolate cookies. – Washington, D.C. Malcolm X at a Black Muslim meeting.

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